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Make Your Own!
Making your own meditation tapes allows you to choose and work with particular meditations, and use the music that you enjoy. If you prefer to have no music playing then simply do not record any!

Sounds of nature are also wonderful for meditation sessions - whale song, the breeze blowing, birds and crickets chirping, the sounds of water in a waterfall or at the beach or river, coyotes, wolves howling etc.....

Guided Visualizations
Guided visualizations are extremely effective for meditation and can also be a very good way to initiate healing. Guided visualizations are when someone guides you through a meditation using imagery in an almost story type way. Many of my meditations using this technique are available on my web pages, and are available to be used by anyone who wishes to use them.

Empty the Mind.
If you are not doing a guided visualization, the focus is on emptying the mind of all thought. This is a very difficult thing to do as our minds are always thinking. Even the thought of keeping our minds empty of thought - is a thought! Many get off to the wrong foot with meditation by actively trying to concentrate on not thinking!

The secret is not to force anything, not to actively empty the mind, but simply to be.....to exist.....to drift in a state of being without actively engaging the mind.....allowing thoughts to drift in and out without seizing on any of them......to let them come in and leave when we do not focus on them.....gradually you will notice they come in less and less and you will go deeper into meditation.

In this state we are not a body or a mind - we rediscover that our true essence self is pure energy. Our physical body is attached to its life in the present, our soul simply is . It is when we allow ourselves to connect with our true state of being, that we begin to replenish ourselves on a soul level which then drifts down to the other levels.

In this state knowledge simply merges - perhaps a little like osmosis. This is our natural state of being. Thus when we take the time to reconnect to this state, we feel remarkably rested and emotionally and spiritually nourished.

If the art of meditation is undertaken on a regular basis, a strong connection to the spirit plane will be established. In this state, messages may move backwards and forwards. Much spiritual information is passed back and forth in this way. That is why many seek answers and knowldege through meditation.

Exist in the moment.
As we become proficient at this type of meditation, we can then move on to the realization that it is possible to meditate in each given moment. Indeed it is possible for our whole lives to be a meditation. If we keep ourselves in each moment without worrying about the future or the past, but absorbing each gvien moment without judgement or deliberation, we are essentially meditating - for our minds are not engaged in thinking - only absorbing. It would be like living on another level! This might sound farfetched but we only have to look at life in a Buddhist monastery to catch a glimpse of what this would be like.

While most of us would not want to live our life this way, it is possible to achieve it even if it is only for a few moments each day. It can be achieved by doing something that we are so used to doing that we can do it automatically.

This can be something as simple as housework, jogging, swimming laps, cleaning the car, aerobics etc....These are all repetitious and non-dangerous activities where we can put the body on automatic pilot and allow the mind to be still because it does not have to be engaged in any thought process. It is an automatic routine that doesn't require us to make any changes or decisions. I also find pottering in my garden an easy opportunity for some meditation!

In Conclusion
There are many wonderful ways to meditate, only a few of which I have explained here. Basically it can be as simple as lying down with some peaceful music and relaxing, or resting on a blanket in the garden listening to the sounds of nature around you.